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Portrait of Tu Youyou

Science · Maths, astronomy, medicine & more

Tu Youyou

born 1930 · Chinese

Medicine — pharmaceutical chemistry (antimalarials)

Tu Youyou is a Chinese pharmaceutical chemist who discovered artemisinin, a highly effective malaria treatment derived from sweet wormwood. Working on the secret military Project 523, she was inspired by a 4th-century text of traditional Chinese medicine to extract the compound at low temperature. She shared the 2015 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, becoming the first Chinese woman to win a Nobel Prize in a science.

How to spot them

  • ▸Artemisinin (qinghaosu) from sweet wormwood, Artemisia annua
  • ▸Project 523, a secret Chinese military programme begun in 1967
  • ▸Inspired by Ge Hong's A Handbook of Prescriptions for Emergencies
  • ▸2015 Nobel Prize, shared with William C. Campbell and Satoshi Ōmura
  • ▸Called the 'three-no' laureate: no medical degree, no doctorate, no research training abroad

Key discoveries & works

Discovery of artemisinin (1971–1972)

Low-temperature ether extraction from sweet wormwood proved highly effective against malaria parasites

Project 523 (1969 onwards)

Appointed to lead a research group in the secret programme to find a malaria cure

Dihydroartemisinin (1973)

A more potent derivative of artemisinin

Lasker~DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award (2011)

For the discovery of artemisinin

Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for a novel malaria therapy (2015)

Half the prize; the other half went to Campbell and Ōmura for avermectin

Key ideas

  • Ancient traditional remedies can guide modern drug discovery
  • Heat destroyed the active compound, so a cold extraction method was the breakthrough
  • Artemisinin-based combination therapies are now the standard treatment for malaria

Quick-fire facts

  • •Born on 30 December 1930 in Ningbo, Zhejiang province
  • •Graduated from the pharmacy department of Beijing Medical College in 1955
  • •Worked at the China Academy of Traditional Chinese Medicine in Beijing
  • •She and colleagues volunteered to take the extract themselves to test its safety
  • •Her team screened about 2,000 traditional recipes before focusing on sweet wormwood
  • •Awarded China's Medal of the Republic in 2019

Drill it — 7 cards

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Sources